Knowledge that Transforms

A 9‐item Likert‐type scale was developed to measure consumer skepticism toward advertising. Skepticism toward advertising, defined as the general tendency toward disbelief of advertising claims, was hypothesized to be a basic marketplace belief that varies across individuals and is related to general persuasability. A nomological network was proposed, unidimensionality and internal consistency of the scale were established, and a series of studies were conducted to establish the scale's validity and to investigate the effects of ad skepticism.

Numerical magnitude information, such as 32 mpg, is often specified as a number in the context of a unit of measurement for a specific attribute, whereas verbal magnitude information such as high mileage, is usually a generic descriptor that may apply to several attributes. Because of its specificity, numerical information may be easier to distinguish from other information and hence, easier to encode and retrieve than is verbal information. However, numerical labels often lack inherent meaning, whereas verbal information conveys meaning more readily. Based on this reasoning, we generate and test hypotheses about how numerical and verbal information is processed and remembered following learning, judgment, and choice tasks. Across several studies, numerical information was found to require less processing time, recognized faster and more accurately, and recalled more exactly, than verbal information for a learning task. However, some of these advantages for numerical over verbal information were found to persist following a judgment task or a choice task. Additional studies demonstrate that these processing and memory differences between numerical and verbal information can be reduced or eliminated by (a) presenting all information along an attribute either verbally or numerically so that both verbal and numerical information are equated on attribute specificity, and (b) presenting numerical information in the form of numbers on a rating scale so that it is similar to verbal information in terms of conveying meaning. The findings suggest that the key to processing and memory differences between different types of magnitude information may lie in how specifically the magnitude information is linked to an attribute and also how readily it conveys meaning in an information processing context.

Chinese names consist of logographs that represent the meanings of a word, whereas English names consist of alphabetic letters that represent the sound of the word. Therefore, we propose that Chinese brand attitudes are primarily affected by the match between script associations and brand associations, but brand attitudes of English names are primarily affected by the match between sound associations and brand associations. A cross‐cultural study conducted in China and the United States confirms these predictions. These findings add further evidence to the stream of research that shows how structural features of languages and writing systems affect consumer behavior.

Product knowledge has been recognized as an important factor in the research on consumer decision making. It has also been acknowledged that there are different types of knowledge. In this article, we examine the impact of three types of knowledge—subjective knowledge, objective knowledge, and usage experience—on selected aspects of consumer decision making. Effects are examined within the context of an electronic shopping scenario in which subjects selected a VCR brand based on brand and attribute information that could be accessed through a personal computer. Results indicate that, consistent with real‐world experience, the three types of knowledge are correlated with each other. However, their effects on attribute importances, information search, and perceived decision outcomes vary by level and type of knowledge. We discuss these effects and their implications for future research.

Two conceptualizations of innovativeness are operationalized and related to the new product adoption process. Multi‐item scales designed to measure consumer independent judgment making (i.e., the degree to which an individual makes innovation decisions independently of the communicated experience of others) and consumer novelty seeking (i.e., the desire to seek out new product information) are developed and tested on adult consumers. Tests of the hypothesized effects of these traits show that consumer novelty seeking is positively related to early stages of the adoption process (i.e., actualized novelty seeking and new product awareness), whereas consumer independent judgment making is only associated with later stages of the adoption process (i.e., new product trial). The implications of these findings and suggestions for future research are also discussed.

There are at least four different ways in which the country of origin of a product could affect its evaluations: (a) as a product attribute whose implications combine with other attributes to influence evaluations, (b) as a signal to infer more specific product characteristics, (c) as a heuristic (to simplify the evaluation task), and (d) as a standard relative to which the product is compared. The manner in which country of origin is used in evaluations was expected to depend on subjects' familiarity with the product being judged, the amount of attribute information available, the importance of the evaluation, and the order in which country‐of‐origin and intrinsic attribute information was received. In fact, country of origin appeared to function in three of the four ways considered, but there was little evidence that it served as a heuristic in any condition. Results confirm the need to consider the use of country‐of‐origin information in several different capacities simultaneously rather than assuming that its effects result from a single underlying process.

Previous research on brand name utilization in consumer judgments has yielded mixed results. In this study, we attempted to understand brand name effects within the framework of the heuristic‐systematic model. Subjects read a message that portrayed a new product as possessing either important or unimportant attributes, and the product was associated with either a favorable brand name or an unfavorable brand name. Brand name valence was thus either congruent or incongruent with attribute importance. Accuracy motivation was also manipulated by varying the importance of subjects' processing task. Results show that low‐task importance subjects' evaluations were influenced only by brand name valence. High‐task importance subjects' evaluations were affected only by attribute importance in the incongruent conditions, whereas both attribute importance and brand name valence influenced evaluations in the congruent conditions. The findings indicate that both consumers' level of motivation, and the extent to which brand name based expectations are confirmed by subsequent processing of attribute information moderate brand name utilization. Also, the results extend previous research relevant to the heuristic‐systematic model's additivity and attenuation assumptions.